Godzilla Continuity: Parachronic Homogeny part 1: GODZILLA

We start at the most obvious place: the king himself. While the Tohoverse outside of Godzilla is just as expansive and awesome as the purely Godzilla part, there's no denying that all threads lead back to Godzilla in this world. He is, very much, the center of the Tohoverse, even when he's not directly present in a given story. This is, of course, based on the fact that he's solely responsible for the whole thing ever having happened in the first place, and he's also garnered the most consistent attention over the 60 year history of Toho's science fiction and fantasy (and some horror) films.

DISCLAIMER: If you don't know what a "parachronic homogeny" is, or want to know how it is that I'm still alive after "Godzilla 2014," as it's called, I guess, be sure to read my intro to this new sub-series here.


The Godzilla film series, as in the 28 numbered films that actually count (of course I'm excluding gino 2, it isn't a real Godzilla movie, it's a sidebar, like Godzilla Island or something), occur in one of 5 specific timelines. These are:

1. Showa Films:

1. Godzilla (1954)
2. Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
3. King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
4. Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
5. Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster (1964)
6. Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965)
7. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966)
8. Son of Godzilla (1967)
9. Destroy All Monsters (1968)
10. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
11. Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
12. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
13. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
14. Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

2. Heisei Films:

1. Godzilla (1954)
2. Return of Godzilla (1984)
3. Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
4. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
5. Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
6. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
7. Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla (1994)
8. Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995)
9. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

3. Millennium* Films:

1. Godzilla X Megaguiras (2000)

4. Sokougeki* Films:

1. Godzilla (1954)
2. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah (2001)

5. Shinsei* Films:

1. Godzilla (1954)
2. Godzilla X Mechagodzilla (2002)
3. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)

*These monikers, Millennium, Sokougeki, and Shinsei as applied to these timelines is a concept of my own invention, this isn't from a book or anything, but since these don't have over-arching names that apply to the actual timeline of events as we do with the Showa and Heisei series since they all occur in the same universe, I've come up with my own naming scheme. "Shinsei" is fan term that was passed around in the early aughts that means something like "new era" if I'm not mistaken, and was adopted by some for the Millennium series since it sounded more Japanese. Well... was Japanese. I use Millennium here as specifically the timeline that uses the "Millennium Godzilla," or the 1999 Godzilla suit, the Mire-Goji, since Godzilla 2000, which has "Millennium" in its Japanese title, is where the whole notion of the Millennium era came from in the first place. "Sokougeki" is just part of the subtitle of GMK.

You may have noticed that two main series entries are missing from the above list, the 10th and 23rd films to be specific. That's because the films in question have no continuity. AMA exists in the "real" world where Godzilla movies are just movies of which Ichiro is a fan, and Godzilla 2000 makes absolutely no connection to any other film, not even the original, so not only is it a part of anything, but even unto itself it has no world history. Godzilla just exists, that's the only set-up there is. GxM gives us a real backstory which actually replaces the original film, therefore making it also the only one in that world, but G2k doesn't even have that to establish itself. It just is.

AMA and ALWAYS 2 form part of the basis for what I call the "Shodai" timeline, which is sort of a little bonus thing that I won't get into too much here but might later. As far as combining G2k and GxM goes, as I did in my last post on the subject (which is outdated), there's an issue which I forgot until re-watching it again recently: Godzilla in G2k heads for the Tokai Power Plant, which in GxM was shut down after Godzilla first destroyed it in 1966. Now, using Showa continuity logic this actually isn't a real problem, seeing as how we can simply selectively ignore that one element, but it isn't clear if Showa continuity logic can be retroactively applied in this manner. I'd still connect the two without a doubt, but for our purposes here we don't really need that resolved.

But of course Godzilla doesn't stop there, and these timelines don't necessarily go in that order, and of course there's the matter of non-film material to deal with. The TV series Zone Fighter, the Hannah-Barbera Godzilla cartoon, and "A Space Godzilla" are all connected to the Showa series in at least some way. Zone Fighter is absolutely part of the timeline, word of god style, and fits inbetween Megalon and Mechagodzilla, basically forcing Megalon's "197X" date to just be 1973 (it occurs after GvsG, and ZF occurs in 1973). The cartoon... while it was originally intended to fit into the film's canon (I checked, Steve Ryfle's excellent book confirms this), it certainly has nothing to do with them in its present form. At best, it seems to be in a pocket dimension or something where at some point the Showa series diverged and either this or the Marvel comics series happened. ASG's implications are complicated, more in a bit.

So when we look at the big picture of the 5 timelines in which Godzilla appears, with all the films placed in order, it looks like this:

You'll need to look at the whole picture for it to be readable.

So take a good look at this little spread sheet I made and take in this information because we're going to be playing with it a bit as we go through the different pieces of information it gives us.

Now these timelines were made only by taking into account the films that apply strictly to each timeline, so the prehistory of Godzilla's ancestors as hypothesized by Dr. Kyohei Yamane in the first film appears in every timeline where the first film does, leaving the Millennium timeline out in the cold. But doesn't that seem weird to you? We all know this is what Godzilla is, and even though GxM changes the story a bit it's still directly referencing the first film, and obviously Godzilla still has to have SOME kind of evolutionary history, right? Welcome to parachronic homogeny land, friend. So as with any history that changes after a certain event, it should be that all events extolled in any movie, regardless of what timeline it takes place in, that occur before it splits off from the others must be true in each.

So the history of Godzillasaurs is consistent throughout, that's a given. What else? Well the Heisei series gives us two things that happen before any of the Godzillas even exist, back when they were still normal Godzillasauruses. That would be the Lagos Godzillasaurus getting into a skirmish during WWII and becoming the second Heisei Godzilla because he was teleported to the Bering Sea, which implies the timeline where he wasn't teleported was the one where he was mutated in 1954 ala the Showa series, and when the female Godzillasaurus (the Lagos Island one's cousin) laid her egg on Adonoa Island in a Pteradon (my own name for Rodan's genus) nest, one which will not hatch until 1994.

So to set it up we've got now:
1. The Odo Island Godzillasaurus which always becomes the first Godzilla
2. The Lagos Island Godzillasaurus which for sure becomes the second Godzilla in the Showa and Heisei timelines
3. The female Godzillasaurus which got cut from the GvsMGII script, which is Junior's mother and may or may not have become a Godzilla herself
4. Two Minillas, one of which is born as a Godzilla and not a Godzillasaurus, and the other... idunno
5. Godzilla Junior himself, who definitely hatches in the Heisei timeline
6. The second Godzilla from the Shinsei timeline, who is the first's son

Only one of the "millennium series" timelines features a second Godzilla, in the Sokougeki one he came back as a zombie/ghost/thing and in GxM he simply never died. Where's the second Godzilla in these scenarios? It's possible he could have died from his wounds after the encounter with the American military.

Now that we've looked at it a bit, let's talk about the second Shinsei Godzilla. To say that the Lagos Island Godzillasaurus is the Odo Island one's son would be quite the revelation indeed, but I don't think that's the case in the slightest. For one, if it was, it wouldn't explain why he appears so much later than in the Showa or Heisei timelines, no this has to be another one. The only real option left is that it's Junior, and that makes a lot of sense. Now part of the fun of this sort of theorizing is how credible and sensible the ideas themselves are, if you just invent every notion it's no longer a theory it's just fan fiction. We know that there are two Godzillasaurus/Godzilla eggs laid throughout the series, and that means there HAS to be a female Godzillasaurus out there. We also know that both the only other known surviving male Godzillasauruses at the time became Godzillas and approached Japan. That we never saw a female Godzilla is, in this light, kind of a really big deal. My point is that we can't just go making up that isn't directly supported and multiple female Godzillas and a large extended family is a pipe dream. THESE monsters, the ones we've got, are what we have to work with.

So we know:
Odo Godzilla is the father of the second Shinsei Godzilla (unknown identity)
Lagos Godzilla is not the son, but is the cousin of either Odo or Female because...
Junior (Adonoa) is the second Heisei's second cousin, and it's likely that...
Female Godzilla (or just Godzillasaurus?) is also the mother of...
The Showa Minilla, and possibly the Heisei one too, son of the Lagos Godzilla and NOT the Odo one.

The answer should be clear by now: the father of Junior is the original Godzilla from Odo Island, the second Godzilla's cousin, who fathered Minilla through the same female partner. And it holds up! The explanation for why this second Godzilla didn't appear until 1999 has been answered for us: he's only five years old, having hatched in 1994, and only became a full-grown mutant Godzilla at that time. He probably first showed up at that time because he was just hungry. And it also seems to jell with his personality in those two films, as he seems far more naive and animal-like than previous Godzillas who've been alive long before mutation and dealt with a series or ever-increasing bizarre threats afterwards.

So if egg is a ticking time-bomb, laid before the Bikini Atoll test and set to hatch in 1994 no matter what timeline it's in, why doesn't it always hatch? Part of what I want to do with my parachronic homogeny theories is to actually have them be consistent and explain why some things did and didn't happen as best as I can, and I think for this we're going to, unfortunately, have to look at incubation periods. UGH. @_@

Normally eggs don't take 12 to 40 years to hatch. Given the strange effects nuclear fallout has on Godzillasauruses, though, it's hardly the weirdest thing. This is kind of an important detail, as we see both Minilla and Junior before and after hatching. Minilla lives on an island that was just hit by a man-made radioactive storm (although buried in a mound, was it affected?), and Junior on an island that's been a dumping ground for nuclear waste for decades and shares it with an already fully mutated Rodan. And yet, Minilla is a Godzilla and Junior is a Godzillasaurus. The difference, as I've mentioned on this blog before, is when they were laid. Junior's egg was affected by the radiation, for sure, but it just meant he took longer to develop. Minilla on the other hand was never in the blast radius at all, being laid in 1955, meaning that on a good day it just takes 12 years for a Godzilla egg to hatch. Think about that for a minute. Radiation really fucks up the incubation periods for Godzillasaurus/Godzillas. Living dinosaurs in the real world spend a lot of time in their nests, regulating temperature and moisture is vital to the development of the embryo. The Godzillasaurus way seems to be pretty lax, though, and I say this because in the films we see evidence for an island hopping semi-aquatic animal that uses burial mounds (probably to absorb excess moisture), egg parasitism, and their innate magnetoception to hone in on their radio-scrambling frequency (Junior does it but Minilla's is much stronger) so they can find their eggs whenever and wherever they are. It's safe to say that even in their original, un-mutated forms, Godzillasaurus eggs take an abnormally long time to gestate. Partly because it's just a bigger animal, but it may also have something to do with their anomalous "radiovore" biology.

And it is probably their biggest weakness as a species. Let's not beat around the bush here: Godzillasaurus is on the brink of extinction. Yes, Godzilla is effectively indestructible, but he's one of only two or three left of his kind in the entire world. A large marine predator in a lost world environment with plenty of giant octopi to eat should be all over the place, yet it wasn't until 1954 that we even knew they exist, and by then there were at most 3 living specimens, and a single unhatched egg.

Now I want to break off into a tangent for a moment and talk about Minilla: he's weird because he's Godzilla's son, not a baby Godzillasaurus. We're all clear on this, correct? Good. So assuming that the female Godzillasaurus was mutated in the Heisei timeline and again just never really showed up, that gives us a stretch from between 1992-1999 when it could have been fathered by either the Lagos or Adonoa Godzilla and subsequently laid. GFW happens sometimes between 2030-2039 (I go with 2032 because it's the first date I heard, and supposedly comes from an interview in G-Fan), now that's far longer than 12 years. One clue to what's going on here might be that in the Showa timeline, Minilla's father didn't suddenly go missing for 40 years, so between adventures (which didn't end in him being frozen or cocooned) he probably had time to stop by before it hatched. If Heisei Minilla's egg was laid late enough, one might assume that without semi-regular attention, it would have taken even longer than the already truly outrageous 12 years to hatch on its own. Maybe even 40 years.

So these Godzillasaurus eggs might not require constant attention, but they do need some care, and radiation will screw up the mechanics of development quite a bit. The additional stresses of now being god damned Godzilla probably put even more pressure on the eggs as their parents are busy fighting space monsters and giant robots. Now let's go over what we know about these couple of subjects:

That this female Godzilla IS mutated in at least the Showa and Heisei timelines, since...
There is a Minilla in each one, although both he and...
Junior are missing in two of the timelines where the Lagos Godzilla dies of his wounds.

What would happen if the female Godzillasaurus never became a Godzilla? It's hard to say, since we never really see her, but if you take all the information we've been over into account, the loss of that extra Godzilla poking around might be just enough to set Junior's unhatched egg over the edge and become stillborn. Remember, the only evidence we have of her existence as a Godzilla is Minilla, and there's no Minilla in either of the timelines Junior is absent from.

And at this point we've figured out where every Godzilla comes from, and why, with one bizarre exception: Minilla in Destroy All Monsters. Taking place in 1999, if this is the same Minilla from SoG it would make him 32 fucking years old. I'm sorry, but that's just not possible. You could probably explain this as him being stunted by the radioactive storm or something, but I don't buy it for two big reasons: 1.) because concept art actually shows a progression from Minilla to adult Godzilla meaning and 2.) because they never used the word "Minilla" in the film once, they always call him "Godzilla." Yes, both Godzilla and Minilla are referred to as "Godzilla" in the film and, yes, it is a little confusing, especially at one point when the professor wonders if Godzilla is dead... a shockingly stupid thought until you realize he's talking about the baby. So, yeah, I don't know anything about Minilla ever being a "stunted Godzilla," the implication (and outright directly stated situation) is that he's just a baby. There is no way in hell Junior becomes an adult after being exposed to Godzilla's radiation after a mere 3 years, yet after 32 years Minilla looks exactly the same. I don't buy it, and I don't have to.

Earlier I mentioned "A Space Godzilla," a short story serialized in the Japanese Starlog magazine in 1979 that was originally meant to be a movie, one of the lost late 70's Godzilla projects. But the story was published and does exist, so we can't just ignore it. In the story, Godzilla has to return to his home planet. Yeah, I know, I can sense the reaction over the internet, but just fucking cut it out and listen because I don't have time for that closed-minded crap. I've never read the story myself, so I don't know if it's a period piece or not, which could be a possibility as it features technology such as watching memories back on a computer monitor and turning Godzilla's body into a spaceship. Yeah I get it, it's weird, knock it off. However it really doesn't matter, since the story is sooooo far removed from the standard Showa timeline that you basically have to ignore everything if you want it to work, but the damage itself is done: here was have a real Godzilla short story wherein the Showa Godzilla dies/goes back to her home planet. And really, that's all I want.

So now we've got a grown-up Minilla and a new baby Godzilla, hmm... who could that be? Well let's see, if DAM takes place in 1999, then... oh right, it's Junior.

See why this stuff is cool now?

So let's have a look at the final chart we've drawn up with the fates of the various Godzillas of the Toho Multiverse:

And here's a look at the full timeline for each universe as it relates to the topic (again, both of these should be viewed in full in order for them to be readable):